What a wonderful success story!  A few years ago Dzinara Alimbekova was training for Biathlon at the Chausy Regional School of Sport (formerly called the Chausy Orphanage) and Canadian Aid for Chernobyl helped out, buying her first set of professional ski equipment. This week she achieved gold at the Pyeongchang Olympics with 3 team-mates in the 4 x 6km relay event.

One of her teachers from the school posted this picture with the caption “Dzinara stepped from the school threshold to the Olympic Podium. Proud!” (translated from Russian)

Dzinara on the Chausy School doorstep and with her teammates after winning gold in Pyeongchang. (3rd from left)

Congratulations Dzinara from all of your friends in Canada.  Your hard work and perseverance has paid off and we too are very proud of you!

Here is another picture from a a few years ago when she was still training in Chausy alongside some of her teammates.  They all did really well as you will note from the medals:

Here she is with her teammates this week with their Gold medals:

Hopefully we will see Dzinara in April in Chausy, if we do we will bring you another update.

Eric McKenzie